A toss-up, then Clarke makes a Bird of it

Date: January 04 2013

Malcolm Knox

FRED Astaire, when taken to a cricket match, asked why the ball was red. Some conventions in the game just are because they are, such as choosing your best six batsmen and four bowlers, and batting first when winning the toss. Australia has repudiated the old wisdom in Sydney, and so far, on the scoreboard if not morally or convincingly, it has managed to get away with it.

Jackson Bird was the most impressive of the pace quartet, again getting into his rhythm quickly and achieving the breakthrough. In three innings as a Test bowler, Bird has taken a wicket early in his first spell; it is a knack that will keep him the new ball.

Tellingly, Bird's opening five-over spell was the only time an Australian paceman bowled more than four consecutive overs. With a wealth of options, Michael Clarke flitted from one to the next like a nervous shopper at the New Year sales without making serious inroads into a Sri Lankan batting line-up that showed more spine than in Melbourne.

There is something out of balance about a five-bowler attack, due less to any inherent logic than to accumulated experience. It's true that one of the greatest teams, Don Bradman's Invincibles of 1948, also had four seamers and one off-spinner; but one of those seamers was Keith Miller, who was comfortably one of the country's best six batsmen. Miller was the exception who proved any number of rules.

The outcome on the day was that Australia's bowling battery seemed, like the security cordon at the SCG, both overstaffed and underemployed. And team selection was not the only rebuff to orthodoxy. Clarke's decision to defy W. G. Grace's dictum - bat first nine times out of 10, and the other time consider bowling and then bat first - was undoubtedly driven by his unorthodox team selection.

If Australia was to capitalise on its pace-heavy line-up, exploit Sri Lanka's inexperienced batting, and perhaps protect its own short-staffed top order, then bowling first was the way to go. But the wicket was fair to bat and ball and the bowling was not penetrative enough to cause a collapse. The tail of team selection had wagged the dog of on-field tactics; before tea all of the multiple options had been exhausted and Mike Hussey was having a trundle.

Credit was also due to the Sri Lankan batsmen. It is a shame Mahela Jayawardene has only made one Test century in Australia, in Hobart five years ago, because he is a beautiful technician. With a high left elbow and low centre of gravity, Jayawardene would be a perfect model for those textbook portraits showing batting as a side-on game.

Having braved Sri Lankan cricket politics for several years, he found no inconvenience in moving up to No. 3. Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson tore in at him, but Jayawardene was the epitome of non-violent resistance, petting their thunderbolts to the rope with a soapy slickness.

He played his best innings of the tour and looked certain to make a hundred before Mitchell Starc remembered that extra bounce can undo a batsman more surely when he is driving than when he is ducking.

The just-arrived Lahiru Thirimanne was not, perhaps, unlucky to miss out on a century, but few would have begrudged it. A week ago he was at home on Sri Lanka's west coast. If he had been looking at his countrymen batting in the second Test on TV, he would not have been watching for as long as he batted on Thursday. He rode his fortune but was not put off by it.

Late to Australia, he was early on his shots, scooping and slicing the ball wide of the fieldsmen, but after settling down with a straight-driven four off Bird he played an innings of character.

Soon, Sri Lanka is going to need much more of his generation.

Australia got what it wanted in the end, owing to a combination of talent, confidence and home-ground advantage more than to the success of its game plan. Five bowlers seemed too many; will five batsmen be too few?

Innovation has been the watermark of Clarke's captaincy, so it can't be criticised too stridently, but his smoke-and-mirrors style has worked best in asymmetric contests with opponents who like to play to a formula. Against South Africa, Australia's guerilla tactics worked, up to a point at least. But in this series, it's well to remember that the Australians have asserted their superiority by playing methodical, patient, conventional Test cricket which has paid respect to the opposition and to the game.

Thousands at the SCG declined the chance to watch the play from a ''beach'', preferring the somewhat passe option of a seat. Equally, those on the field might find that the boring ways work best.

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